I have a Dell laptop that I bought approximately 8 months ago. Roughly $1000, still under factory warranty.
About a week ago it died. Just died. No response when I hit the power button. So I contacted Dell support. To their credit, they sent a technician to my house the next day. He replaced the motherboard and power cord.
The computer worked for one hour thereafter. It died again, and would start back up for ten seconds up to three minutes, randomly. So I called them back, and they sent the same technician back today. He had a "new" motherboard with him again, which I found out was refurbished after he told me that motherboards have an unlock password, but it is supposed to be erased upon being refurbished. This one was apparently not erased, and after being on the phone with India for 15 minutes, he was told to tell me that Dell will send a pre-paid shipping box to send the computer in, and I will get it back in 7-9 business days. :/
What's worse, they aren't willing to copy the contents of my hard drive onto a new one if the HDD is faulty as the technician theorizes. They say that is my responsibility and that I have to pay someone else to do it. Fortunately, there is nothing critical, terribly personal or irreplaceable on it. Maybe some really good porn links, which I can find again.
FWIW I was not rude to the technician at all. He did the best he could with what he was given. He handed me his phone so I could talk to Mr. India, but that was fruitless. I threw the phone jockey from India off script and he had no idea what to say. That was almost funny.
At this point I would like to demand a new laptop. I financed this one through Dell credit and still owe some money on it. The stubborn side of me (which governs most of my life) says to demand a new one, and refuse to pay off the current one if they don't comply. Perhaps it's a lost cause. Maybe they have me by the balls, and I should just cave and do what they say.
Your opinions, APS?
